Reminds me of the time I moved a machine at work to find the piece of paper I dropped, that had slid under the cabinet. Maintanence wasn't "aware" of the situation, but promptly had the vendor's there to remove some equipment! Carried my hot beverage in a thermos after that.

Sparky, The problem is likely poor contact in the receptacle resulting in a high resistance connection and excessive heat, but not excessive current. OCPDs provide little protection when there is a high resistance connection in the circuit. Don(resqcapt19)

I notice the local Home Depot has a whole section devoted to this type of thing.They've got 2 wire to 3 wire adapters, 2 wire cube taps, screwshell lampholder to 2 wire receptacle, and "homeowner quad recps" like this one.How come they can sell this *%#@ ??Isn't there some type of regulation??

No 2-wire to 3-wire adapters here, but we've had our share of overloaded outlets with multi-way adapters as well. The better types incorporate a standard plug fuse to at least provide some extra protection.

Bayonet-cap lampholder to 2-pin outlet adapters used to be very popular for electric irons years ago.

Another problem is that some of the cheap imported plugs sold these days have very flimsy, thin fuse clips. They're fine for a lamp or TV, but on a 2kW+ load they run really hot and overheat the outlet.